Call for Proposals — Rouge Forum 2014
The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom
June 5-7, 2014
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Denver, Colorado
Join Us!!!

The core issue of our time is the clash of the real threat for perpetual war,
climate chaos and catastrophe, and booming inequality met by the potential of
connecting reason to power with organized mass class conscious resistance
geared to the construction of a society grounded in substantive
democracy. The vital role schools play within communities brings
forth its role as a central organizing site of community wide and global
resistance.

To deepen and clarify our understanding of social justice and to develop
pedagogies that will lead to organized mass class conscious resistance within
schools and communities to overcome injustices, the Rouge Forum’s national
conference brings together academic presentations, panel discussions,
performances, dialogue, community building, and cultural events.

This year’s national conference, The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and
Outside the Classroom, is intended to bring forward that interconnectedness
between what happens inside and outside classrooms. The economic
polarization over the past thirty years has enriched and empowered the ruling
class. The central role schools play for the ruling class in the
(re)production of unequal social relations and its reinforcing ideological
structure has become more intense as inequality expands. However, schools
have the possibility to resist this ruling class domination by challenging the
historical role of schools and turning them into sites of resistance and
transformation. In other words, schools can become central sites in the
class struggle. Thus, what we do as students, educators and community
members counts because we can either take the side of increased inequality and
authoritarianism, or work to bring about social justice. Join us at
the Rouge Forum in Denver.

To address the Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom,
the Rouge Forum’s national conference will center on such questions as:
* How does inequality affect our classrooms, schools and communities?
* What is behind the intensification of K-12 factory schooling especially with
the increased mania for core curriculum and the accompanying high stakes
standardized testing? How are teachers responding to this intensification?
* What role do capitalism, imperialism and war play in our classrooms, schools
and communities?
* What can we learn from our daily individual actions, more concerted actions
within the United States
such as the Occupy Movement and the Chicago
teacher strike, and international actions to make us smarter and stronger in
our struggle for social justice?
* What do we envision as a better society and how can we root that vision in
the past to guide our actions in the present?
* What pedagogies are necessary to liberate ourselves from the oppressive
structures and social relations that give rise to inequality?

Consider participating in the Rouge Forum in Denver and submit a proposal addressing the
conference themes.

Individual Proposal (30 minutes)
The Rouge Forum welcomes individual proposals, with the understanding that
those accepted might be grouped together around common or overlapping
themes. Presenters will have approximately 20 minutes to present
with ten minutes for interaction and discussion with audience members. Individual
paper submissions will be considered for panels with the same
topic/theme. A 250-750 word abstract will be peer reviewed for
acceptance to the conference.

Panel Proposal (60-75 minutes)
A panel discussion is another venue available presenters. A panel discussion is
typically composed of three to six participants who discuss their work within
the context of a dialogue or conversation on a topic or theme related to the
conference theme. Typically, each panelist is given 10 minutes to discuss
the topic, present theoretical ideas, and/or point to relevant research. A
chair should be identified who introduces the panel and frames the issues and
questions being addressed. In addition to the chair, we encourage (but do not
require) organizers of panels to name a discussant to the comments of the
panelists. Individual proposal submissions will be combined into panels with
the same theme/topic. A 250-750 word abstract of the panel discussion will be
peer reviewed for acceptance to the conference.

Alternative Format and Special Interest Groups (30-60 minutes)
Alternative proposals that do not fit into the above categories, such as
workshops, performances, video and multimedia presentations are
encouraged. We also welcome proposals for the organization of
special interest groups. A 250-750 word abstract of the proposal will be peer
reviewed for acceptance to the conference.

Dialogues (30 minutes) A dialogue session would provide an opportunity for a
“presenter” to facilitate a conversation around a particular issue. A
250-750 word abstract of the proposal will be peer reviewed for acceptance to
the conference.

SUBMISSIONS: Deadline for submissions is February 1, 2014. To
submit a proposal click here.
QUESTIONS: For questions, contact Faith Wilson at fwilson@aurora.edu.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

The communism of capital? What could this awkward turn of
phrase mean, and what might it signify with regards to the state of the world
today? Does it merely describe a reality in which communist demands are twisted
to become productive of capital, a capitalist realism supplemented by a
disarmed communist ideology? Or does the death of the capitalist utopia mean
that capital cannot contain the antagonism expressed by Occupy and other
movements any more, and therefore must confront communism upfront?

The 12 contributions to this latest issue of ephemera
explore the valances of the paradoxical and seemingly incoherent expression
that is ‘the communism of capital’. Collectively they stake out new territory
for the theorisation and organization of political struggle in a context in
which capital has become increasingly aware that its age-old nemesis might
today be lurking at its very heart.

You can order a print copy of the whole issue now at your
local bookstore!

As the austerity agenda intensifies, this special issue of Alternate Routes is seeking papers that
explore how education is being restructured in light of market pressures to
commodify and marketize learning and teaching from pre-school to post-secondary
education and beyond. The conference will be held on Friday April 4, 2014 at RyersonUniversity. Paper
proposals may include but are not limited to: How have state policies increased
pressures to corporatize and privatize public education? How have children and
youth programs been affected? How has the quality of work and labour been
impacted? How have intersecting axes of oppression related to class, race,
ethnicity, gender and so forth been reinforced or contested in the classroom?
In what ways have student curriculums and teachers’ academic freedoms been
affected? Have educators and employees challenged such pressures? What role
have trade union and community activists played in challenging the prerogatives
of capitalism in the classroom? Are there progressive educational alternatives
to neoliberalism?

Additional topics may include: ongoing theoretical debates;
community outreach and education campaigns; cross-sectoral and international
comparisons; new pedagogical methods and policy proposals for schooling and
education; corporate influences on campus and in the classroom; new
technologies and online-learning; publishing and dissemination of research; new
public management and academic/non-academic labour; and social justice
activism.

Conference submissions must be received no later than January 5, 2014. Please include an
abstract no longer than 300-words and brief biography. Conference decisions
will be made within one week.

If you are interested in submitting an article but cannot
attend the conference, articles must be submitted by May 15, 2014.

New authors are encouraged to
visit www.alternateroutes.ca for author guidelines and additional
information. Conference proposals and article submissions must be sent
directly to editor@alternateroutes.ca

With the onset of Austerity Capitalism and Immiseration
Capitalism, and with the increasing commodification, marketisation and
privatisation of society and of education, Marxist theory and Marxist Education
Theory have taken on a new urgency. This is particularly so in the face of the
`class war from above’ , in which bankers and the capitalist class gets ever
richer, while the living standards, public and formerly public institutions and
the material conditions of life are diminished and degraded.

In this collection of essays, written from a classic Marxist
perspective, and fired with a cold anger and incisive analysis, Dave Hill lays
bare how the capitalist class and their often unwitting helpers in the
knowledge industry/ academia, use ideological (and repressive) state
apparatuses, such as education, to divide, disarm and demoralise
critical, Marxist analysis and activism.

In this powerful collection, Dave Hill, a Marxist academic,
activist in academia and on the streets in different
countries, catalogues and castigates Capitalist / pro-capitalist
depredation both within the academy, within classrooms and within society. But
in this volume, there is more than critique- there is a call to action, a call
for anger and analysis, a demand for theoretically informed practice in the
different arenas of Resistance.

CONTENTS:

Foreword: Peter McLaren

Introduction: Dave Hill

PART 1: Class and “Race”

1. Social Class and Education

2. The Culturalization of Class and the Occluding of Class
Consciousness: The Knowledge Industry in/of Education.

The Heathwood Institute republished my paper Postmodern Dereliction in the Face of Neoliberal
Education Policy through their Heathwood Press website on 5th
September 2013.

This paper was written primarily for my EDU3004 ‘Education,
Culture & Society’ students, for an Education Studies module in the School of Education
and the University
of Northampton. However,
it may be of more general interest. It was originally posted to ‘The Flow of
Ideas’ website on 27th April 2008, and was one of the last articles posted to
my old ‘Volumizer’ blog before AOL shut down all of its blogs.

The Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) http://www.cseweb.org.uk/
is an international, democratic membership organisation committed to developing
a materialist critique of capitalism, unconstrained by conventional academic
divisions between subjects. CSE has organised and supported conferences and
seminars and publishes the Sage journal Capital & Class http://cnc.sagepub.com/
three times a year.

The CSE South Group is a new network of researchers and
activists mirroring the CSE Transpennine Group which runs across the north of Britain
initiated by Capital and Class Editorial Board members Stuart Shields and Greig
Charnock. We will be organising workshops where people present work and hold
discussions on topics that concern the CSE and our journal.

The CSE South Group will hold a launch event on Friday the
25th October at MiddlesexUniversity. Our speakers
will be Professor Martin Upchurch, who will present ‘Towards the New Workplace
Dystopia’; Dr Owen Worth, Managing Editor for Capital & Class, who will
speak about ‘The Crisis of Capital’ and Dr Phoebe Moore, Editorial Board member
for Capital & Class and convenor for the CSE South Group who will speak
about ‘Cognitive Capitalism and the Quantified Worker’.

We will also hold a Roundtable called ‘Contemporary
Conditions of Capital’ where we will discuss and debate issues in contemporary
conditions of capital including mental health and work, global production
networks, commodification of education, safety at work, migration and much
more. Speakers on the roundtable will include Peter Hough, author of 'Valuing
Culture by Ignoring it: Relativism and Human Rights' and 'Who's Securing Whom?
The need for International Relations to Embrace Human Security'; Elizabeth
Cotton who has written Global Unions Global Business (with Richard Croucher)
and initiator of: http://survivingwork.org/ ; and Clive
Boddy, author of Corporate Psychopaths: Organisational Destroyers.

If you come along you will have the chance to meet
individuals on the Capital & Class
Editorial Board and a wide range of other researchers and activists.

This will be the first of many workshops run by the CSE
South Group. These events will encourage networking across activists, trade
unionists, newer researchers and the established cadre who can learn from one
another, think together and act in solidarity toward a transformed world.

EGYPTIAN MILITARY SEEKS TO EXTINGUISH REVOLUTION -- by Kevin Anderson
The Egyptian military's August 14 massacre of supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood marked a reach for total power. The complicity of some parts of the
democratic movement has placed in jeopardy the entire revolutionary wave that
has gripped the country since 2011.

REFLECTIONS ON TURKEY'S
GEZI PARK PROTESTS? -- by Onur Kapdan
Draws lessons from the Gezi Park protests as new type of horizontal social
struggle that goes beyond earlier Turkish politics, whether leftist or
nationalist; analyzes the ideological control mechanisms of Turkish capitalism
under Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP).

HEGEL IN 10 MINUTES? -- by David Black
This riff on Hegel took place at a fringe meeting of the Association of Musical
Marxists during the Marxism 2013 conference in London in July. [Originally
appeared on the AMM website.]

ANALYSES OF 2013 IRANIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION? -- by Frieda Afary
Persian and English-language analyses that have attempted to comprehend these
events have ranged from a dismissal of the election process as a completely
engineered one, to uncritical support for the election results. [Originally
appeared in Iranian Progressives in Translation.]

HUSBY RIOTS: THE OTHER FACE OF SWEDISH SOCIAL DEMOCRACY EXPOSED? -- by Ba
Karang
The recent rioting in Stockholm over the police killing of a Portuguese
immigrant was a manifestation of the growing inequalities in Sweden, a society
once seen as synonymous with social democracy.

TWO POEMS ON REVOLUTION? -- by Sam Friedman

IRANIAN INTELLECTUALS BREAK TABOOS? -- by Frieda Afary
Mohammad Nourizad and Mohsen Makhmalbaf are both filmmakers. Both were
active supporters of the Iranian regime but later turned against the regime and
became ardent advocates of human rights. Now they have openly broken with
another feature of their past: prejudice against religious minorities.
[Originally appeared in Iranian Progressives in Translation.]

WHITHER THE IRANIAN DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION? -- by Frieda Afary
Although the recent disqualification of two candidates Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei from the election is very significant and further
reveals the intense power struggles within the regime, more significant are the
defining issues that continue to fuel the grassroots discontent inside Iran.
[Originally appeared in Iranian Progressives in Translation.]

*** OTHER LANGUAGES
MANY ARTICLES on our site have recently been translated from English into
Persian, Spanish, and other languages. (See the Languages Pages.)

***RECENT BOOKS OF INTEREST:

MARX'S CONCEPT OF THE ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM ? by Peter Hudis
Historical Materialism Series, now in paperback with Haymarket Books
MARX ON GENDER AND THE FAMILY: A CRITICAL STUDY ? by Heather Brown
Historical Materialism Series, now in paperback with Haymarket Books

Access to the full texts of current articles is restricted to those who have a
Personal subscription, or those whose institution has a Library subscription. There
is open access for older articles.

PLEASE NOTE: to accommodate the increasing flow of quality
papers this journal will expand to 8 numbers per volume/year as from Volume 12,
2014.

PERSONAL SUBSCRIPTION (single user access) Subscription to
the January-December 2013 issues (including full access to ALL back numbers),
is available to individuals at a cost of US$54.00. If you wish to subscribe you
may do so immediately at www.wwwords.co.uk/subscribePFIE.asp

LIBRARY SUBSCRIPTION (institution-wide access) If you are
working within an institution that maintains a Library, please urge them to
purchase a Library subscription so access is provided throughout your institution;
full details for libraries can be found: www.symposium-journals.co.uk/prices.html

About Me

I am a Visiting Fellow in the College of Social Science at the University of Lincoln. I was previously a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Education at Anglia Ruskin University (2014-15). Prior to that, I was previously a Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at the University of Northampton. My interests are in Marxist educational theory, the future of the human and social time. The Rikowski family web site, The Flow of Ideas can be found at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk,
My Wordpress blog, 'All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski' is at: http://rikowski.wordpress.com,
Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski
@ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski